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[j.hall]

electrical wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 16:39

Have you ever listened to a record and thought, gee, this sounds too natural? Too much like the real thing? I haven't. I have thought the opposite though, more often than not.

see, i actually have.

the interesting thing to me is that you honestly believe you are neutral.  your records sound absolutely 100% like the band in their practice space.  and that you think you can actually facilitate anything the band wants sonically.

every person on the planet hears sound differently.  so what you think a band sounds like and your opinion of being totally neutral in the process is going to be totally different for some one else attempting to do the same exact thing.

so, peter gabriel and soul coughing are complete crap and deserve to have, in your opinion, dated and cliched albums.  but low (and band you have worked with in the past) is not crap and thus should be respected and given a product that sounds exactly like they would live in a church?

so if peter gabriel hired you, would he still be crap, and deserving of a cliched dated record?

and if other people really thought you were neutral and could make a record sound like whatever they wanted, why did low hire tchad to mix trust and not you?

i also finding it interesting that engineers that are using compression more then you, are considered bad in your eyes.  

so all these other AE's that are horrible at their jobs but some how still working with bands that sell millions of records they will just go down in the history books as cliched and dated.  where things cut in the 50's, 60's, 70's are not dated or cliched?

you stand as this planet's sole champion of an uncliched timeless record?

you honestly think people hire steve albini for the sole reason of getting aneutral sounding record.........i think you're lying to yourself.  people hire you for "that thing you do"  just like people hire me for the same reason.

[electrical]

j.hall wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 18:40

electrical wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 16:39 Have you ever listened to a record and thought, gee, this sounds too natural? Too much like the real thing? I haven't. I have thought the opposite though, more often than not. see, i actually have.

Granting that you might once have thought that, it must be incredibly rare. Or do you also prefer Cool-Whip to creme chantilly?

Quote:

the interesting thing to me is that you honestly believe you are neutral.

I would never suggest that I am "neutral" in a million years. Of course I have some effect on the records I work on. Of course I do. It is the fact that it is so difficult to avoid having a detrimental impact that makes the job so difficult. I think the unavoidable effect I have on records is enough, and I don't feel the need to control the process or impose my aesthetic on it any more than that.

Quote:

your records sound absolutely 100% like the band in their practice space.

I've never said that, and I don't know if that is a worthwhile goal, as bands generally don't like their practice spaces. I think the records are as close to what the band wants as I am capable of. They generally start with an un-manipulated representation of the band. Sometimes they finish that way, sometimes not. It's a good place to start, and I don't understand what would be better about starting someplace phony.

Quote:

and that you think you can actually facilitate anything the band wants sonically.

I'm pretty good, actually. I can do most things in the studio.

Quote:

every person on the planet hears sound differently.  so what you think a band sounds like and your opinion of being totally neutral in the process is going to be totally different for some one else attempting to do the same exact thing.

That's one of the things that makes it hard. I need to understand what the band is shooting for, and that requires me to listen actively, critically, and be aware of what the band is listening for as well.

Quote:

so, peter gabriel and soul coughing are complete crap and deserve to have, in your opinion, dated and cliched albums.

Oh no, I don't think they deserve it. Nobody deserves that. But they ended up with dated, cliche-riddled albums.

Quote:

but low (and band you have worked with in the past) is not crap and thus should be respected and given a product that sounds exactly like they would live in a church?

I think every band should be allowed to have precisely the record they want. As an aside, Low are incredible. Geniuses.

Quote:

so if peter gabriel hired you, would he still be crap, and deserving of a cliched dated record?

Being crap (or not) is up to him. Not imposing my own set of cliches would be up to me.

Quote:

and if other people really thought you were neutral and could make a record sound like whatever they wanted, why did low hire tchad to mix trust and not you?

Because they wanted to. What the hell are you asking? Low get to make their records however they want. I think Great Destroyer is a really good album, and I think that's Low's doing.

Quote:

i also finding it interesting that engineers that are using compression more then you, are considered bad in your eyes.

Most engineers use more compression than I do, and not all of them are bad. Most bad engineers use way more compression than I do, but that's tautological, because using more of anything is a sure way to get bad with it.  

Quote:

so all these other AE's that are horrible at their jobs but some how still working with bands that sell millions of records they will just go down in the history books as cliched and dated.  where things cut in the 50's, 60's, 70's are not dated or cliched?

Not the good stuff, no. I'll take Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and you can have "Material Girl." I'll take AC/DC, and you can have Interpol.

Quote:

you stand as this planet's sole champion of an uncliched timeless record?

Where do you get this stuff? It isn't about me. It's about not willfully imposing extra-musical crap on a band just because you're working on their record. I don't care who does it. Anybody doing a good job for the band and not trying to have his way with their record is doing fine by me. On a fundamental level, it's about respect. Have respect for the people who hire you and their lives' work.

Quote:

you honestly think people hire steve albini for the sole reason of getting aneutral sounding record.........i think you're lying to yourself.  people hire you for "that thing you do"  just like people hire me for the same reason.

What exactly is that thing I do? Seriously, if there's a thing I do, and that's what gets me work, I'd love to know what it is, so I can advertise that I do it. Name this thing I do.

It seems you have created a vision of me that suits your arguments against it, and this matters to you. I'm sorry I'm not like that, and I don't believe or act in a way that would fit this image. I don't like disappointing people.

[Colin Frangos]

j.hall wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 15:40

electrical wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 16:39 Have you ever listened to a record and thought, gee, this sounds too natural? Too much like the real thing? I haven't. I have thought the opposite though, more often than not. see, i actually have.

Huh. Details, please. I'm having a hard time believing you on this one, so I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate on this point.

Quote:

every person on the planet hears sound differently.  so what you think a band sounds like and your opinion of being totally neutral in the process is going to be totally different for some one else attempting to do the same exact thing.

While this is technically true on a theoretical scientific basis, to pretend that it matters here is goofy. If there weren't commonalities of perception (also scientifically demonstrable), then no AE would have a basis for doing anything because nobody would hear what they've done the same way. It's a stupid argument, and demonstrably untrue.

Quote:

so, peter gabriel and soul coughing are complete crap and deserve to have, in your opinion, dated and cliched albums.

I don't think he said they deserved dated and cliched albums, but rather that they ended up with dated and cliched albums. Sure they only have themselves to blame, but the word "deserve" implies some higher good/bad dichotomy that I don't think is implied or at issue.

[Tidewater]

electrical wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 19:24

Not the good stuff, no. I'll take Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and you can have "Material Girl." I'll take AC/DC, and you can have Interpol.

Well! hah!

On compression though, I don't like using compressors that sound like they aren't working.


M

[maxim]

steve a wrote:

"I think the records are as close to what the band wants as I am capable of"

what makes you think other ae's don't strive for the same goal, including the some of the ones you bag?

how do you know what the band wants?

aren't you making an ultimately autocratic decision or do you have consensus sessions on how much compression is just right?

did patsy cline have total control over her sound?

does madonna?

[Tidewater]

maxim wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 22:26

steve a wrote: what makes you think other ae's don't strive for the same goal, including the some of the ones you bag? how do you know what the band wants? aren't you making an ultimately autocratic decision or do you have consensus sessions on how much compression is just right? did patsy cline have total control over her sound? does madonna?

He know's they do. Some people are more capable.

They tell him they like what he did, and he does it again.

Trained intuition, manipulation, sometimes by previous known examples.

No.

Yes. She hires the sounds she wants.


M

[electrical]

maxim wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 22:26

steve a wrote: "I think the records are as close to what the band wants as I am capable of" what makes you think other ae's don't strive for the same goal, including the some of the ones you bag?

I'm sure other engineers do strive for it. I never suggested that I am the only one, only that it is a worthwhile target.

Quote:

how do you know what the band wants?

I ask them. This is too easy.

Quote:

aren't you making an ultimately autocratic decision or do you have consensus sessions on how much compression is just right?

If the band aren't happy, I try something else. Until everyone likes it. The end.

Quote:

did patsy cline have total control over her sound?

The Patsy part of it she did. One reason she sounds so great is that we can hear everything she was doing, not just what was being done to her.

Quote:

does madonna?

I have no idea.

[maxim]

that was pretty, miles

i agree with it all

my point is that steve's position is no different to anyone else's

i also have no doubt bands choose steve because of his "band in the room" aesthetic

giorgio moroder had a "band in the box" aesthetic

george martin had a "salvation army band on a 4 track" aesthetic

it's wrong to say the latter didn't provide "what the band wants", coz what the band wants is for people to hear their music.

whatever works... oops, wrong forum

[Tidewater]

Yeah, but you have to accept everything people might say in a forum has certain stipulations, and is full of caveats.

One of the stipulations, when you are discussing someone's methods, and that person is well known for his methods, is that just about everyone that hires him is going to have a fairly good idea of what he's going to help them end up with.

He's not the most expensive engineer ever to live, but he's not cheap enough to 'try, and see'.

I misjudged Mr. Albini over the test thread. I thought he might be lame, but he's a porcupine!

(That's like an... uhh like an oppossum-billed wombat, with painful quills.)



Oh, and LMAO on the Moroder BIAB thing.


M

[maxim]

miles wrote:

"That's like an... uhh like an oppossum-billed wombat, with painful quills"

i appreciate the down-under perspective, albeit somewhat grotesque, but i was born in russia, so all you had to say was "giant hedgehog", and i would understand

[Nama]

Hello. This is my first post here.
Thanks to Mr. SteveI Albini, I have learned a lot on this forum.
I record improvised music, so I absolutely use no compression when tracking.
No way to record a 60 years old great sax player (pretty known in the avant music world) with compression to destroy the amazing tone.  
When mixing, I could use a multiband comp to bring up some volume to hand out a demo to the musician when the performance is too quite , or when some hits are too loud because of my mistakenly placed mic toward the cymbal or something. I also play in a band which plays structured improvised music. We have just released our first album which I recorded without compressors and used compressors to fix things. I wanted to share my opinion from my side.

"the interesting thing to me is that you honestly believe you are neutral.  your records sound absolutely 100% like the band in their practice space.  and that you think you can actually facilitate anything the band wants sonically."

As Steve said, I don't think many bands want to make records which sound like they play in their practice space, esp if you live in NY, and practice in a really tiny room.


"so if peter gabriel hired you, would he still be crap, and deserving of a cliched dated record?"

IF is fun, but it's important to be realistic when you do business, and I don't really think Peter Gabriel would want to hire Steve. I think some of you are bringing some names which don't really have anything to do with Steve Albini.

"you honestly think people hire steve albini for the sole reason of getting aneutral sounding record.........i think you're lying to yourself.  people hire you for "that thing you do"  just like people hire me for the same reason."

in my opinion, that thing Steve does would be "nothing". I read his posts here, also a recent interview in Japanese Sound & Recording magazine. He clearly says he doesn't use compressors very much. Since my band is a live band, really, we would like to record our live shows to make records rather than going to a studio, but it's very hard and stressful because most house engineers use EQ, or compressor or whatever because they are not so experienced, sometime, interns. (well we still only gather about 50 people to our show, so we can't hire an engineer for us) so, they think they have to use compressors or something. We can use some direct outs to get unprocessed signal, but sometimes we may have to use a mix bus which is processed by a in house engineer.

So,  If I had enough money,  I would really like to hire Steve to record our live shows because he knows how to record and doesn't overdo. I think he is a really special case, so people are jealous about it sometimes.  

happy new year.

Best Regards,

[bobkatz]

Did anyone consider that the very choice of of close multimiking changes the dynamics of a band?

That close miking changes the peak to average ratio of a sax player, for example----- to be exagerrated beyond what they sound like live and how they balance with the band?

So that compression may be necessary to some degree in order to balance the close miked players together? That some individual's parts may "stick out too far" compared to how you would hear them if the mike were not so close?

It's an art...  and a science. Every decision affects how you have to treat it in the mixing, including where you put the microphones in the tracking.

BK

[astroshack]

bobkatz wrote on Mon, 02 January 2006 14:16

That close miking changes the peak to average ratio of a sax player, for example----- to be exagerrated beyond what they sound like live and how they balance with the band?

sax players balance with the room! Especially when soloing!  


Sean

[massimo santantonio]

I apologyze for being a bit off target.
While reading Steve Albini's posts I couldn't help but thinking he is at the exact polar opposite of some guy like Todd Rundgren as a producer. I understand they could not be more different. Todd is a pure genius, and is wery well known for putting his own strong sonic mark over anything he produces. In fact many of his productions do sound like a Utopia record (Tubes's Remote Control and XTC's Skylarking come to mind). However, it must be also said that in doing so he was able to expose those artists to his own loyal cult following, who indeed would buy the product to smell that bit of a Todd scent. So this perhaps makes for a rather unique case example.
Best regards and
Happy New Year
Massimo

[Fibes]

electrical wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 17:39

Fibes wrote on Sun, 01 January 2006 17:21 ....or absence of production... Have you ever listened to a record and thought, gee, this sounds too natural? Too much like the real thing? I haven't. I have thought the opposite though, more often than not.

Steve,

I fall on your side of the coin whenever possible and if genius walks through the door i stay the fuck out of their way, make things go a smooth as possible and allow them to bring their shit to the table untethered.

As per compression digital makes me have to use more since the tape isn't there to help the process. That doesn't mean stun, just using the stuff that makes me feel like I'm using tape. I've found the Distressors and Trakkers to be two opposing types but useful in getting there...

In my market people come to us for different reasons and we have to face the reality that they need us as a guide. The studio can be an intimidating tool that most of the uninitiated don't have a full grasp of. Education is part of the game.
When those clients walk in, as you've said intense listening is what we MUST do. Whether it's a band or solo artist we get as much background info as humanly possible so we can execute their plan.

It's their painting but sometimes we have to extrapolate what colors go in what spots because they didn't fill in the color by numbers unicorn as thoroughly as they should have.

This listening helps us to give them what they want not what they ask (or didn't)for. It's a game of semantics but the reality is that people come to you for what you do and people go to others for different reasons. Neither client is wrong until the results come back from the lab.

In the end, it's just the end...

I just tracked a band that asked for "the Albini drum sound." I told them if that's what they wanted to hire you. I suppose i should have just tracked their drums without changing the heads, tuning them or anything else but somehow i felt like the oatmeal box sound wasn't what they wanted. The moment the drummer heard his heads changed he thought we were much closer to uh "your sound." Hmmm. I think i shoulda stayed outta the way...


I fucking hate semantics...